And just to prove that 4e players are't a monolithic block, while I agree with @Obryn that the game is better now than it was in 2009 (MM3 damage is especially important once you move out of Heroic tier), but I don't regard the original presentation of the skill challenge rules as abominable (though the DCs themelves obviously were flawed - 4e's scaling makes it very hard to get this right, and Essentials ends up fudging it via the poorly-explained and barely implemented "advantage" mechanic), and I remain a big fan of the MM1 despite it's problems with damage and purple worms.

Haven't posted here in a real long time, but I've been out of the game until very recently.

So... I've been playtesting and, to be completely honest, I'm underwhelmed. It seems like they're pushing to bring back the mechanics of 3.5 but keep the feel of 4E. It's really trying to be all things to all people, and for that reason, it feels really incoherent so far. It's early, I'll reserve judgement, but as of right now, I'm sticking with 3.5 unless Next releases Dragonlance products, then I'll consider it.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't hate it, there are things to really like about it in fact, but I'm still liking 3.5 a lot better.

My group plays 2 weeks of Pathfinder then a week of DnDN, though we're gonna switch back to 3.5 as we still prefer to PF. Still have hopes for DnDN, but I'm losing faith.

Every other edition did not. What are the big complaints about 3e? Splat bloat. What's the primary point of advice given whenever someone has a problem? Go core only. Most of the issues with 3e got exacerbated by later books, not resolved.

1e also. Look at the reaction to Unearthed Arcana or Dungeoneers Survival Guide or Wilderness Survival Guide from 1e fans. Most consider them to be fair to poor in terms of what they bring to game play.

4e is different though. 4e started rough. I totally agree with that. I don't think it's quite the steaming pile that others think, but, I won't deny that it had some pretty serious issues. Fortunately for myself, just like every other edition, I waited about a year before getting into the game. I had to finish up my 3e campaign and then we went off and played some other stuff for a while, before getting into 4e.

And our first 4e game was Raiders of Oakhurst . Well done module that "got" 4e much better than early WOTC modules. And, since we were a year or so after the release of 4e, much of the hashing back and forth of the Errata was done. I never saw constant nerfing because the errata was largely complete by that time. Monster stats and Skill Challenge DC's were already fixed. That sort of thing.

To sum up, judging 4e on the criteria of earlier editions - that the edition gets worse as time goes on until it collapses under the weight of its own splat frenzy - doesn't really apply. WOTC has been very, VERY good about keeping a tight lid on splats and additional rules.

@Ratskinner , @Derren does have a posting history here of repeated characterisations of 4e as a combat-centred tactical skirmish game. It is very much in the same vein as Justin Alexander's "tactical skirmish linked by freeform roleplaying" in his notorious "dissociated mechanics" blog.

I tend to share @Hussar 's frustration with those posts, because each one is always back to the start, as if no one ever posted expaining how 4e is actually being played by those who play it and post about it on these boards. That frustration is exacerbated by Derren's tendency to talk as if his(?) conception of 4e actually captures how it is played, which means that those posts tend to be very dismissive of the games of posters who have replied to him actually expaining how they play the game.

I can understand such frustrations, but I didn't see anything provocative in that post. Now, I didn't stay on the forums for most of the edition wars (once they started heating up, forums kinda lost their value to me), however, it seems to me that there seems to be a lot of very defensive reactions by 4e supporters around here lately. I don't feel inclined to conjecture much about why.

Personally, I kinda feel like the edition wars are over and everybody lost.

Originally Posted by pemerton

As for presentation of 4e, it was obvious to me before 4e was even released (from prerelease blogs etc) that 4e was going to be a scene-focused version of D&D with the high degree of metagame necessary to run that sort of game. I agree that the core 3 books woudn't have made it easy for someone not familiar with that approach to work out how to do it; and there were at least two other serious issues two: a failure to clarify how objective DCs (used in combat resolution, and some skills associated with combat like Athletics to jump) related to metagamed DCs (which are crucial to skill challenges and p 42); and a failure to clarify how keywords are central to leveraging fictional positioning via powers (which comes out expressly only in the DMG discussion of damaging objects).

I didn't follow the run-up to 4e even as much as I have followed the development of 5e. I often wonder how much my impressions and understanding would have been different if I had, frex, picked up Worlds and Monsters. On the one hand, I feel like the initial 4e did a much poorer job than even you give it credit for. On the other hand, its hard to distinguish that from coming to the game with a lot of preconceptions from former editions. I mean that on both a personal and popular level. On the other other hand, I didn't find 4e to be a bad game at all, even without all the insights you had. It ran fine for me with 3e-ish OOC sensibilities.

Originally Posted by pemerton

Given these flaws of presentation, I can see how some players not working out what was going on might collapse the game into a skirmish engine with skirmishes linked by freeform roleplaying. But given, for instance, that the PHB itself calls out the centrality of non-combat encounters to the game in multiple places, and talks about using attack-powers in those encounters, there is basically no justification for thinking that this is what the designers actually had in mind.

And once you put in the discussion of player-designed quests (in PHB and DMG), of wish lists for items (in DMG), of "say yes" (in DMG), etc, there is no justificaiton for thinking that the designers intended the game to be played as a GM-force tactical-skirmish railroad.

I guess I just don't see presumption of what the designers were thinking in Derren's post. (Although I accept that he may have made such in previous posts.) Even in post 77 above, he is couching things in terms of his opinions, impressions, and conjecture.

I think that is a very important point. I just wish experimenting with the 4e++ version(s?) wouldn't require as much investment on my part. (...and that I had a stable of willing subjects...errr, players to try it out with.) I hope for the sake of 5e, that they get most of that errata-ing out of their system before releasing it.

Here's a question for you 4e users out there. Just how "deprecated" are my first-run PHB, DMG, and MM with respect to the current game?

Not terribly bad IMO Ratskinner. You'd need to pick up the latest Errata document for fixes to the Skill Challenges and some math fixes for the monsters. Basically they lowered the HP and upped the damage for most monsters. There's some bits and bobs for different classes and specific powers, but, heck, I still play with only the first three books. It's not like they're unusable.

And, yup, I play my Warlock (Dark Sun) alongside players who use the Character Builder (and thus all sorts of stuff I don't have access to) and my character holds his own. He's perhaps a bit on the weaker side, but, that's because he's a Faelock, more than anything else. The class is just a bit underpowered. Not hugely, but, a bit.

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On a side note, I'd point out Ratskinner that the two quotes of mine that you quoted were actually responses to two different posters - the second one is not to Derren, only the first. And the first one was mostly triggered by this line:

Originally Posted by Derren

As for the poll, it would be interesting to see how what 4E players think of 5E and what PF/3.X players think of it. Because WotC has to try quite hard if they want to recapture the latter group while the former one is more easy to hook.

Which, to be honest, I took as yet another passive/aggressive cheap shot at anyone who doesn't play Pathfinder. It sounds like Pathfinder players are more discriminating and know what they want, while 4e players are only chasing the new shiney because they don't know any better. Later shots about tactical-skirmish game, limited gameplay etc. etc. are all pretty typical Derren posts about 4e.

Not terribly bad IMO Ratskinner. You'd need to pick up the latest Errata document for fixes to the Skill Challenges and some math fixes for the monsters. Basically they lowered the HP and upped the damage for most monsters. There's some bits and bobs for different classes and specific powers, but, heck, I still play with only the first three books. It's not like they're unusable.

That's good to know.

Originally Posted by Hussar

Which, to be honest, I took as yet another passive/aggressive cheap shot at anyone who doesn't play Pathfinder. It sounds like Pathfinder players are more discriminating and know what they want, while 4e players are only chasing the new shiney because they don't know any better. Later shots about tactical-skirmish game, limited gameplay etc. etc. are all pretty typical Derren posts about 4e.

I just read it as the PF crowd having moved-on from seeing WotC/D&D as the "starting point", making them harder to "recapture". I read the thrust of the comment as more about the current development process than the past. I mean, I'd be curious about that, too, especially given that there are posters upthread on both sides saying that 5e is looking too much like the other.

....'course maybe that's a good sign.

I hope.

Originally Posted by Hussar

Probably didn't help that I ran into it in 3 threads in a row.

We all have those days. I know some of the recent threads have gotten so convoluted that I gave up trying to figure out who was arguing what about what.

What are the big complaints about 3e? Splat bloat. What's the primary point of advice given whenever someone has a problem? Go core only. Most of the issues with 3e got exacerbated by later books, not resolved.

I've never really understood the complaints about "splat bloat," to be honest. If you don't like a book that was released after the game came out, simply ignore it. Nobody is forced to include that content in their game.

I've never really understood the complaints about "splat bloat," to be honest. If you don't like a book that was released after the game came out, simply ignore it. Nobody is forced to include that content in their game.

The problem is, while a GM may want to ignore it, a player may want to use it. That means the GM can accept it unconditionally, reject it out of hand, or go through the trouble of reading it and deciding whether to accept it or reject it. Any of these choices may be more trouble than they're worth.

This is essentially the "gnome effect", and is one of the downsides of focusing the product line on the individual player level rather than at the group level.

I've never really understood the complaints about "splat bloat," to be honest. If you don't like a book that was released after the game came out, simply ignore it. Nobody is forced to include that content in their game.

The problem is, people like to buy books. But, because each book has to be just a little bit better than whatever came before, you wind up with some serious power creep after a while.

So, whenever someone comes up and says, "I'm having problem X with Edition Y" the standard answer is always, "Cut back on the supplements and go core only."

However, for 4e, the answer is often, "Yup, that's a known problem. It was fixed in Book Z. Check the errata or buy the book." It's a very different atmosphere for trouble shooting. Most of the time, whenever someone makes a criticism of an earlier edition, you have to wade through a couple of dozen posts of people claiming never to have seen this problem, it cannot possibly be a problem with the mechanics, it must be a problem with the user. 4e tends to go the other way. Blame the system first and find mechanical solutions to problems. I've rarely seen anyone blame the problems that people are having with the system on the user, presupposing that the user is asking in good faith. ((I'm not talking about the ridiculous crap that gets chucked at any edition - it's so anime/videogamey/board gamey/tactical skirmish game etc))